Abstract

Happy end-of-the-year evening and night events provide good opportunities to explain the phases of the moon.The need for such moon phase education is once again demonstrated, through an investigation of illustrations on Santa Claus and Christmas gift wrap and in children's books, in two countries which have been important in shaping the image of Santa Claus and his predecessor Sinterklaas: The Netherlands and the USA. The lack of knowledge concerning the physical origin of the moon phases, or lack of interest in understanding, is found to be widespread in The Netherlands but is also clearly present in the USA, and is quite possibly global.